Just One Christmas
by Kimagure
Summary: Just how much do James and Remus have in common? A late night conversation by the window. Remus/James slash.


JKR, not me. Could be a spin-off of "A Werewolf's Secret" or a standalone. I suppose it depends on how much you want it to be. *shrugs* I nipped one of the jokes in there from the movie "Legally Blonde". 

*****

Just One Christmas

*****

James was sitting in his usual spot by in the picture window, staring out at the cloudless night sky. As a rule, Remus generally avoided the window. Particularly at night. The fewer reminders he had of the moon, the better he generally felt. 

He wasn't one to wallow in the 'what could have been's or the 'if only's. It wasn't that he denied what he was. It would have been impossible to do that. The werewolf was in the way he smelled, the way he saw, the way he felt. 

He just wasn't one to play the tragic hero. For one day out of the month, he was a dangerous bloodthirsty creature. But for the other twenty seven days, he wasn't. 

And he owed it to himself to be as human as he possibly could be. Even if it were something of an impossible goal. While he was always aware of the cycles of the moon, he wouldn't let the phases define him. He might be chained to the stupid rock's pull, but he wouldn't let himself become a prisoner to a bloody light in the sky. He was more than that. 

So, he avoided gazing morosely at the moon for hours like a pathetic git.  

But James could stare at the bloody thing for ages, lost deep in thought. 

"I don't really see the appeal." Remus rested his elbows on James broadening shoulders. Odd to think that next year they'd already be in their sixth year. Sometimes, it seemed like yesterday when he'd cast a Petrificus Totalis on an unsuspecting prat in desperate need of a haircut. 

"No, I don't imagine you would," James replied in his own slightly sardonic voice that cracked an octave on the last word. Remus managed a wry grin as he rested his chin on the top of James' head. 

"So Christmas comes again, and here you are at your most melancholy. Sirius'll have my hide if he comes back to find you unhappy." Remus shook himself slightly before nudging James over roughly. Taking the hint, James moved enough for Remus to squeeze in next to him on the window seat. "He's really protective of you." 

"Of you, too." 

"And paranoid." 

"Oh, god yes. Had to convince him before he left that Snape really wasn't out to sabotage our friendship. He's set on the idea that if he only tries hard enough, he'll be able to keep the peace all the time. And he acts like every disagreement we have is completely his fault. It's damned annoying sometimes. People argue. That's just the way things are," James sighed in tired frustration. 

"Wish that I could be in a dark room with his parents for a few hours," Remus added.  

"You and me both. They screwed him over good with that divorce of theirs." 

"I think, if he could, he'd ditch his family and adopt us," Remus caught James' eye with a wry half grin, which James returned with an eye roll. 

"Probably," James acquiesced with a casual shrug. "Hell, if I were him, I'd ditch his family."

Family. Remus sighed, slinging an arm around James' shoulders and knocking their heads lightly together, as he stared out at the crystal clear quarter moon in the sky. A lifetime ago, he might have spent a Christmas like this at home with his parents. The concrete shed out in the backyard had been completed by the time he'd left school that first year. But with one parent missing in action, and the other trying to work with an auror team to rescue werewolves from their circumstances before You-Know-Who had a chance to persuade them with a proverbial bait and switch...

Christmas alone wasn't all it was cracked up to be. 

Besides, James was here. 

"Whatcha thinking about?" James' voice broke through the dark thoughts, and he spared his friend a small, chagrined smile. 

"My parents. Wondering where they are, what they're doing, if," he broke off abruptly, not willing to get too much into it. 

"Wondering if they're thinking of you," James finished quietly, staring out the window again. "Wondering if you ever cross their thoughts the way that they cross yours." 

"Your father-" Remus halted with a wince. 

"I stopped placing him on a pedestal years ago. Losing Mum," James paused, "I don't know, broke him, somehow. He loves me the best that he can, but you only have to look at him to see that he's half dead himself. It stopped scaring me ages ago, Moony." James murmured, tugging gently on Remus' own shaggy hair before turning to look back out the window and back up at the moon in the sky again. 

"We're all fucking screwed." The words flew out bitterly. The war had taken one of his parents. Remus wasn't naïve enough to think that his father was still alive and well. Missing in action these days was synonymous with dead, and he knew it. 

The growing tensions in the wizarding world had been the last straw in the Blacks' already strained marriage. Sirius' father had left for a much easier life with the muggles he'd grown up with, leaving Sirius to deal with his temperamental mother alone. 

Peter's siblings were scattered across England and halfway across the continent in an attempt to keep them safe and uninvolved. 

And James…

Well, James' life had been fucked long before the war.  

"There's the optimist we know and love," James barked with a laugh, startling him out of his own dark thoughts. "It's not so bad. You're here." 

"So I am," Remus admitted with a sheepish shrug. The silence dragged out between them, but it wasn't oppressive. It never was with James. There was something in James that just resonated with the something in him. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that neither of them were strangers to bloodshed. Or maybe it was just that they'd had a common thread since the beginning, when they'd both been eleven and furious at the world for fucking them over. 

"What exactly did you do to Crabbe's potion last week?" 

"Sneezed on it," Remus grinned, glad for James' odd moments of randomness. He could always depend on the prat to say something goofy or bring up something funny when things got to be too intense. 

"Ah, werewolf saliva. Which, of course, made that thing turn into a ticking time bomb. I sense Sirius' hand at work here." 

"But of course. Got to let the pyromaniac have his fun every once in a while. Bet Crabbe's still scratching head trying to figure out what happened." 

"Which, you know, has got to be a relief for his balls." 

Remus snorted in amusement, as he playfully pushed James' head away. "Prat. You're supposed to be the tragically depressed one, you know." 

"Right. Give me a few minutes and I'll try for some crocodile tears and a Tiny Tim limp," James returned with a straight face, much to Remus' amusement. "Shove over, would you?" 

Obligingly, Remus pulled a leg up, resting it against the pane of glass, and letting James slide around until the other boy's back was resting against Remus' chest and James' hand was resting on the bent knee. 

It was a thin line that they usually tread. Most of the time, Remus could say with absolute certainty that they were nothing more than exceptionally good friends. But when Peter and Sirius were gone, when it was just him and James alone together like this…Well, sometimes it was just imore/i. Small touches here and there that Remus would have looked askance at if it had been Sirius or Peter initiating them. 

Urges of his own that he would have been appalled at had he felt them for anyone but James. 

He pulled his hand up and wrapped it lightly around James' waist, resting it over the grubby shirt James was wearing with sweats for pajamas. Resting his chin on James' head once more, he allowed himself to look out at the moon. Of course, it was still there, and as was usually the case, the sight of it filled him with a small sense of revulsion. 

One might be jailed, but that didn't mean one liked one's jailer. 

"What do you think about when you look at the moon?" James' voice broke through his thoughts once more. He rubbed lightly over his friend's stomach and gave a small shrug. 

"That it's a prison. That no matter how much I look at it, nor how old I get, it will never have the same simple beauty for me that it does for everyone else. That I hate it with every fiber of my being, but that it's still a part of who I am. It's pain and blood and agony, but it's also what makes me, me. And be that all as it may, I'm still more than a prisoner to it. I am my own person, independent of its pull." 

"Deep thoughts, then," James murmured lightly. And even though he couldn't see James's face, Remus imagined that the other teen had a small smile on his face over the obscure nature of the confession. 

"Hmm," Remus agreed hesitantly as James clasped his fingers lightly over Remus' hand. "And you?" They didn't do this often--these confessions that Remus knew would lead nowhere. Although, talking did ease something inside him slightly.

"Tough to say," there was a healthy pause as James seemed to be gathering his thoughts. "Sometimes I look at it and it seems so serene and peaceful and innocent. And then sometimes, I look at it and all I can see is my mum's bloody handprints on the walls by the entryway." James sighed heavily, and Remus worked his hand under James' shirt wanting to feel skin on skin, needing to feel skin on skin while they were sharing thoughts with each other that they simply couldn't explain or share with anyone else. "We've a picture window like this at home. After she was attacked, she made it back into the house and to the window seat before I found her. She'd," James swallowed hard. "She'd reached up to pull the curtain down, I think. She wasn't terribly lucid by that point. And her blood was streaked all over the window. They never said anything about it in the papers, but I watched her bleed to death there. Her face was so," Remus felt James shudder. "I couldn't look at it. All I could watch was the full moon setting through the blood smeared window. So sometimes I look at the moon, and all I see is death and destruction and blood. Pretty stupid, huh?" James let out a shuddered breath, and Remus nuzzled his neck to comfort him. Because in a world that could offer neither of them comfort from their burdens, they could soothe each other. James turned slightly, reaching up a hand to bury it in Remus' hair.  

"James?" Remus made himself ask softly as his face hesitated inches from James'. 

"You're the only one who seems to get it, Moony," James whispered softly, and Remus nodded slightly, breaching the rest of the gap between them to brush his lips against James's. Remus nibbled tentatively before James opened his mouth slightly, letting Remus slide his tongue in to caress James'. Kissing James seemed as natural to him as breathing. 

His hand moved up under James' shirt, delighting in the feel of James' soft skin under the pads of his thumbs. James arched to his touch, and Remus gave a happy, possessive growl. James' hand twisted around to find its way under his shirt as well. 

They'd done this before. Petting each other lightly, reassuring each other that there was someone who cared, that there was someone who was willing to demonstrate that care with tactile touches. 

But never had their petting seemed less than innocent to Remus. And this time, for whatever reason, it did. It wasn't that the room was steeped in sexual tension, or that the pheromones were next to over powering his senses. It was simply that he needed more, that he _wanted_ more. And he could sense that James felt the same. 

Simple comfort wasn't going to be enough to make the demons go away this time. 

Working his way through their awkward positions, Remus managed to peel James' shirt off his lanky frame, leaving the teen's already wild hair pointing every which way from the static electricity. He laughed too, as James tried to smooth it down. Reaching over he pulled James back against him again, moving his fingers lightly over the warm planes of James' skin. Each shiver James gave delighted him, and he sucked lightly at the pulse point at James' throat before moving back up to claim another kiss. 

Not to be outdone, James worked his hands under Remus' shirt too. And twisting around so that he faced Remus slightly, he slowly worked the colorful tie-die monstrosity off Remus' head before leaning over and kissing Remus lightly on the collarbone, just above the massive scar. 

"I can keep my shirt on if it still bothers you," Remus murmured, forcing his tone to be light. He knew that the scar upset James. It always had. Just not for the reason that it might have upset most people. 

"S'okay," James shushed him huskily, before tracing a finger lightly over the pale, disfigured skin. "Must've hurt like a bitch." 

"Felt like I was being ripped in two. Missed by heart by about a centimeter," Remus tried to make the words sound matter-of-fact, but he couldn't keep the tremble out of his voice. Even years after the fact, that one memory still had the power to make him feel eight and helpless all over again. James' hand ghosted over his shoulder, feeling the twin scar on Remus back from where the fangs had punctured completely through him so long ago. 

James bent over slightly, kissing the scar tissue. "I wish I had a visible scar sometimes. Something that I could point to and say, 'See? Look. I survived.' It feels like there's this wall that I can never come out from behind. Because no one understands, or wants to understand, or cares. I feel like there are two of me. There's one me for everyone that I talk to. The me that smiles and laughs and jokes around and acts like everything's okay. And then there's the me that just hides. That can't do anything but sit inside me, rotting and festering. You know?" 

"Yeah," Remus stroked a hand through James' hair gently forcing his friend to look at him. "I understand." 

"I know you do." James reached over, grabbed the sides of Remus' head and pulled him down for another kiss. The tingle of bare skin against bare skin elicited a growl out of Remus as he aggressively took control of the kiss, and a chuckle out of James as he let Remus do so. 

Remus moved his hands down sliding them under the edges of James' sweats. Pulling back from the kiss to nuzzle James' pulse point once more, thrilling at the feel of the warm beat under his tongue. It was warm. And sweet. And so incredibly alive. 

"So…can I pop your cherry?" 

"I can not believe you just asked that with a straight face, Moony." James' laughter washed over him and he cracked a grin in return. With one hand, he grasped James' neck, pulling him in for another kiss, while his other hand moved on to more opportune places. He took the encouraging sounds James made as consent. 

Much later, after a lot of fumbling and a few false starts, the two of them found their way to James' bed. And Remus couldn't quite keep the stupid grin off his face as he kept his arms wrapped loosely around James' slim hips. 

Theirs wasn't a star-crossed, soul mate, forever after kind of love. It was more lasting than that. More solid. Theirs was a love born out of mutual needs, mutual wants, and would last long after the physical. Which suited Remus just fine. James would want the forever after kind of romantic love. James would want the picket fence and the dog. The little wife and the pitter-patter of tiny feet.  

And Remus had stopped wishing for those things years ago. His life was always in a state of perpetual motion. Never stopping, never ending. 

Never settling down. 

But none of that seemed to matter right now as James sighed lightly against his shoulder. All he'd wanted, needed really, was to be with someone who understood, who could sympathize, who knew him on a deep enough level that they didn't need words that he wasn't sure he had the strength to say. 

Nothing in their relationship had really changed. All they'd done was seen an ache in each other than they could assuage. 

And for just this one Christmas, it looked like they'd both gotten what they'd wished.  


End file.
